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VOL. 54 ISSUE 13 APRIL 4, 2017 P133 start for Bostrom and Kawasaki. In qualifying for the prestigious Daytona 600 Supersport race Bostrom only managed a fifth aboard his factory Kawasaki ZX-6R. The Honda CBR600F4s of Roberts, Nicky Hayden and Miguel Duhamel were blazingly fast around Daytona International Speed- way. Then there was John Hopkins showing surprising speed on the Valvoline/EMGO Suzuki GSX-R600. In the race, Bostrom finished fifth, but it could have been much worse. Oil in turn one nearly took him down. Nicky Hayden and Grant Lopez weren't as fortunate and both crashed in the oil. The re-start saw an epic battle with the lead pack with as many as nine riders doing drafting wars on the banking. Bostrom went from first to fifth late in the race, caught out by the draft coming into the first turn. At the checkered flag Bostrom was only 0.363-seconds behind winner Duhamel, but still finished fifth. It was that close. In round two at Sears Point Bostrom finished second to Anthony Gobert. That finish moved Bostrom up to third in the standings behind Du- hamel and Gobert. Bostrom broke through at Road Atlanta and took a dominating victory over the Yoshimura Su- zukis of Aaron Yates and Jamie Hacking. Bostrom took the series lead after his victory at Road Atlanta. He led the championship the rest of the year, holding off strong challenges by Gob- ert and Duhamel, the all-time wins leader in the series. Gobert and Duhamel finished second and third, respectively. Perhaps the biggest victory of the season for Bostrom came at Pikes Peak International Race- way in August, as the series was coming to a tension-filled end. Duhamel and Anthony Gobert needed the win to stay in the championship hunt, but it was Bostrom beating out Gobert by 1.134 seconds for the win. Duhamel's chances were seriously hurt by finishing a sub-par sixth. The 9-11 attacks canceled the Willow Springs round, since travel would have been nearly impos- sible just days after the attack. There was even discussion of canceling the final round at the end of September at Virginia Intl. Raceway, but in the end, it was decided to get things back to normal as much as possible. The Willow cancelation actually helped protect Bostrom's lead. Gobert and Duhamel still had a mathematical chance coming into the finale at VIR, but even with Gobert winning the race and Duhamel taking third, Bostrom's conservative seventh was all he needed. He won the champi- onship over Gobert by 20 points. The Pro Honda Oils 600 Supersport title marked the third road-racing title and fourth AMA National Championship for Bostrom. He won the Formula Xtreme Series in 1998 and the Harley- Davidson 883 Sportster-based SuperTwins class in 1997. A versatile racer, Bostrom was also a flat-track racing champion, winning the Harley- Davidson 883 Dirt Track title in 1996, making him one of the few riders to win national titles in both road racing and flat track. Bostrom' s title gave Kawasaki its second AMA 600 Pro Honda Oils Supersport title. Team Green's previous victory in the class came in 1993 with Miguel Duhamel. You could tell Bostrom was still thinking about the one that got away the year before, but now he'd settled the score. "We almost won a championship last year but there were a few races where we should have went and got points," said Bostrom, after his scoring the title in Virginia. "Maybe I played it too safe or something. This year we just said hey, 'I don't care if I fall off or whatever, I'm going to go out and win as many races as I can.' This is about one of the tougher ones to win, for sure. There's always lots of competition in this class, and anything can happen; it's always a different winner." CN Subscribe to nearly 50 years of Cycle News Archive issues: www.CycleNews.com/Archives